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Where you find religion, you find killing

Lost amidst the media coverage of the VT shooter is this grim report from Turkey about an attack on a Christian publishing house, in which three people were tied up and had their throats cut. While Turkey is “officially” secular, it is only “secular” in that it is not an overt Islamist theocracy; sociopolitically, it may as well be. Ultra-right-wing nationalism is rampant, and these killings were carried out by just such a group of Islamist extremists.

So here we have another case of people dying because of differences in belief about a nonexistent invisible man in the sky. And that’s it. It is sobering and disgraceful that in the 21st century, people still kill other people because of what they believe about their god. If the human race does not grow up sooner rather than later, reject these ancient superstitions, and embrace reason and reality, civilization as we know it will not make it. Deal with this: THERE. IS. NO. GOD. Full stop. So put down your guns and your knives and your bombs and learn to live with each other.

Comments

Nice try, assmonkey. Dealt with this one many times. As I said in my earlier post, I’m happy to let theists comment here, “even stupidly.” Thanks for volunteering to be an example of such.Not every irreligious movement in history has been rationalist or humanist in nature. All that it takes to be atheist is to not believe in any gods, and bad people can have bad reasons for being atheist (usually having to do with emotional rebellion against religion) just like good people can have good reasons for it (education).Western atheism is distinct from eastern atheism in that the former has been mostly informed by Enlightenment philosophies. The east does not seem to have had an intellectual Enlightenment, so it’s no surprise if opposition to religion in eastern cultures takes an anti-humanist and repressive bent. Mao may have said “religion is poison,” but there’s ample biographical information to show he was no friend to humanism either. These people suppressed religion as a threat to their power, not for theological or intellectual reasons.So eastern atheistic governments have their Gulags, and western Christian theocracies have had their pogroms and inquisitions and torture racks and public burnings. Don’t see that you’ve got a position to defend here, DY.Mention violence done in the name of religion, and the Dingleberry Platoon will immediately throw in your face guys like Stalin and Pol Pot (and sometimes Hitler, if they’re ignorant of Hitler’s boastful Catholicism). As if atheists have claimed these guys never existed. Of course, no one seems to be able to pinpoint any writings or speeches or public pronouncements by these figures in which they explicitly attribute their actions to their atheism, in the way that Hitler, bin Laden, and countless medieval popes have explicitly justified their atrocities with appeals to their God.A country like Norway, described by our own State Department as “a highly developed stable democracy with a modern economy,” with only a 10% churchgoing population, low crime, and over 95% adult literacy, is a fine example of how a western secular society can succeed.Anyway, I notice you’ve already tried to troll over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars and been banned outright. So I recognized your nym right off. But I was happy to educate you over your public display of moronity once. That’s it for you. Henceforth, why not spend your time constructively, instead of trolling, by facing the fact that it wasn’t atheists who slashed these folks’ throats in Turkey, it was followers of a competing superstition. And the fact that your God was absent for another atrocity in Virginia, allowing the innocent to die. Which means he’s either evil, or imaginary. Doesn’t leave someone like you with a lot of wiggle room, does it?